It Just Gets Worse

Work. The scourge of the drinking classes. The necessary evil. The place that fills you with dread on Sunday nights. And now, for me, the place where they try to screw you over with disputes over your pay.

I am now convinced I work for, possibly, the biggest asshole I have ever met. Not only is she an asshole, she is also incompetent. Not only is she incompetent, but she fucks up a lot. Of course, I will not go into great detail or name names here, but I will provide a background as well as an opportunity for me to vent:

When I was offered this job, they were having a hard time finding someone. The reason for this, as I now know, was becasue my boss could not find anyone satisfactory enough to meet her ridiculous and unfounded standards. The saying "those in glass houses..." applies directly to her. Anyway. I agreed to come over to this company from the other company I was working for, who work here in the office as well. Both companies are, in a way, partners in many things. I was taking a big risk but was propelled into this position by the money. I was told that the job was being offered with a certain salary, but that in the time they had been trying to find someone, they had decided to raise it. This was all stated verbally to me, never written down. When I signed my contract, the amount was much higher and was also reflected in a per hour amount, rather than shown as salary.

Recently, my company discovered that our accountant screwed up our taxes and had not been deducting enough from our paycheques. When they told me the true amount of take-home pay I would be receiving once this tax situation was sorted out, I realized that I was being paid much less than I was supposed to be. On my paystubs, there is no breakdown, just a total of my gross and then the deductions. I have never seen my salary written down, nor have I ever signed a document with my yearly figure on it. All I have seen is my hourly.

This is why I assumed (after having signed a contract that represents my pay in a per hour format) that I was paid hourly. When I brought this issue up with my boss, I was told that I was on salary. When I told her that they were underpaying me, she told me that I was incorrect and that if they were to pay me what I thought I was owed (based on what I make hourly) they would be overpaying me.

Huh.

I signed a contract that stated clearly what I am to be paid per hour. When this is calculated with what they are actually paying me, I am making thousands of dollars less a year than I am owed by contract.

Nice eh? It gets better.

She tells me that she will have to look at my contract again and go over this with her boss. When I tell her I am concerned that they will cut my hourly down, she tells me to sit tight and wait. No reassurance, no nothing. Bitch.

They (her and her boss, who rules over the whole place) start going over my contract in quiet whispering tones so that I cannot hear them, yet they remain in the same area as me. I notice that they are talking about changing policies.

My blood starts boiling.

After an hour, I am presented with a letter that I am supposed to sign that not only says in the first line that "Though we had a verbal agreement, we fucked up and are paying you too much" but then goes on to say that "even though you were promised a raise at your yearly review, you will not get one because you are being overpaid."

I refused to sign the letter. Well, that did not go over too well. And here I am now, facing the wrath of my boss who has clearly decided to take this out on me. I know for a fact that she fucked up and is trying ever so hard not to let her boss find out. (Though both of them looked at the contract before they gave it to me.) I also know that the girl I worked with at the other company, who I am now very close with, was offered the position with my company a while ago, before I accepted it. She was also told she would receive the same hourly rate as I am getting right now.

Interesting.

Office Girl.

The Burbs

This weekend I had dinner with 3 women from my neighborhood. All of them are mothers already, so as you can imagine, there was a lot of talk about kids. I don’t mind that though. I love kids and it’s also interesting to get some perspective on parenting. The scary part of the discussion came when they started talking about the other mothers in our neighborhood. Now, I didn’t realize this, but apparently the new housing development across the road from us is considered “the snobby part of town”. I know that the houses are more expensive, but the area is not what I would call rich. It is certainly middle class to upper middle class, but not big money rich.

Anyway.

The mothers in the other neighborhood are all stay-at-homes who drive big SUV’s and have that really annoying flippy hairdo. Well, the women in my hood do not like the other women and vice versa. But man oh man, the venom at the table the other night! It is no different than high school. And high school was total bullshit. I thought that once you finally escaped the soul-crushing, dumbed-down, sociologically challenged environment that they call high school, it was over. Oh no my friend. You move to the suburbs and enter High School Part 2.

I asked the girls why they even cared. They said they couldn’t help it; they got sucked in to the mentality. Now, I did not learn a lot in high school, besides how to smoke drugs in a variety of ways and that teachers are broken, broken people. But I did learn one very important lesson:

If you don’t care what they think of you, they have no power. And from this knowledge I went on to being a confidant, happy and well-adjusted adult (well, most of the time anyway).

Suffice it to say, the suburbs are ridiculous. The soccer moms, ever clad in yoga wear or those matching plastic jacket-pant combinations that make them look “sporty”, tooling around in cars that are too big for them, dropping the kids off at school or leaving them with the nanny to go get their hair done or have their stretch marks lasered off. The men who, as soon as the temperature hits above 8 degrees, are out washing their cars and cracking their first beers just after 1pm. They obsess about the cleanliness of their cars and the greenness of their lawns. The bratty children that ride their bikes on your lawn and scribble swear words in chalk on your fence simply because you are the corner lot. I could go on, but I am boring myself.

I take solace in the fact that I am not an idiot, that I have a good marriage and that I do have some female friends who share the same interests as me and aren’t whiny and vapid. At least I have that.

Office Girl.

Four Day Weekend! But do I deserve it?

I can’t believe that I am getting a four-day weekend. Of course, the only reason that I am getting Monday off as well as Friday is because the other company that works in our office is taking it off. My boss was not impressed. She actually wanted to come to work on Monday. When I told her I thought it was nice to have a four day weekend, considering that it has been a few months since we’ve had holiday time, she replied by saying:

“We get tons of time off in the summer (which is bullshit-a couple of long weekends in the summer does not constitute “tons of time off” in my mind) and the only reason we are taking Monday off is because they are (referring to the other company).”

Wow. She really does not want to take time off. What the fuck is wrong with this person? I know she is a total spinster and the most bitter person I have ever met but come on! Seriously, I don’t know how much longer I can work in this place. I spent the day yesterday driving her around to and from a car mechanic’s place. She said thanks, but this morning she comes in and shows me something she has baked.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“It’s for blank, I made her one cause she’s just so nice.” she says, referring to someone from the other company.

Hmm. Nice, eh? Did she drive your ass around all day yesterday? No.

I could care less about getting something from her, but the fact that she is either being totally rude or completely oblivious all the time is really starting to piss me off.

So what the hell do I do? Wait to get pregnant and go off on maternity, or look for another job at the risk of getting pregnant soon after I am hired there? Quite a dilemma.

Office Girl.

Lunchtime Martyrs

I have noticed a disturbing trend around the office lately; there appears to be some sort of unspoken competition that begins each day at 12pm: who can avoid going to lunch the longest in order to be the last person at the cafeteria table.

Perhaps I should explain.

The reason for the intentional tardiness, I am assuming, is to appear to be “too busy to go for lunch”. Each day the same technical support guy is the first to get up from his chair at exactly noon and saunter by all of our cubicles asking us if we are coming for lunch. Often, I am on the phone when he walks by me so I just give him the nod and the shooing motion with my hand. Other people, one of them being my boss, practically guffaw at him and often make comments like:

“Whoa, it must be twelve on the dot cause so and so is already on their way to lunch-you know so and so, we don’t have to go running to the cafeteria just because it’s noon” (This is usually said in a hateful and rude way and normally said by my boss.)

Each day, for the past two weeks, lunch for the majority in the office has been beginning later and later. It’s like, everyone is in the competition now. It’s really annoying because I am normally hungry around noon because I have breakfast at 6:45am, and I don’t want to sit in the cafeteria by myself. Also, this is the only time of day I have to socialize since I quit smoking, so I would like to actually see people.

Anyway, I won’t go on about this but it is really getting on my nerves. It is common knowledge that 80% of people who work here have nothing to do; this is after all government work.

What is the deal with people?

Office Girl

Work, Wombs and Whining

Apparently, getting pregnant is not as easy as I thought it would be. It's actually getting kind of frustrating. Every month it's the same thing: Could I be? Am I? Is it too early to take a pregnancy test? And then I get my period. This month, I have mapped out my entire cycle and as unromantic as it sounds, my husband and I have a 'schedule to stick to'. I shouldn't complain though, I've only been trying for about 4 months and I was on the pill for over 10 years, so I guess my body is trying to get back to it's regular routine.

On the work front, I'm still not too thrilled with my job. I have been working longer hours despite my obvious reluctance to do so. The people I work for (and I'm sure this goes on everywhere) do not seem to understand that I have a life outside of this office. They love to work and they are always stressed out.

To me, it's not worth it. And I am sure that when I have babies, I will be even more reluctant to put in all the extra time and effort at a job. I understand that if you really love your job and are happy in that environment then sure, you don't mind putting in the extra time because it feels worth it. I am just amazed at how quickly people lose perspective.

For example: My boss is single and feels she doesn't really have anyone to go home to anyway so she will stay and work for hours and hours on a regular basis. She tells me all the time how stressed she is. Because of the type of industry we work in, the extra overtime is rarely necessary. What does not get done today will get done the next day, no questions asked. So I asked her why she works so much, and told her that I don't think it's worth it. I would rather go home and spend time with friends and family and ENJOY LIFE. Work is a paycheque. It funds your life. Work is not your whole life. She disagreed. She actually said that she didn't mind working all the extra hours because it "builds character". Wow. That's something my grandparents would say.

This is a symptom of a society that values an individual based on how much they sacrifice for their job. The harder you work (with or without acceptable compensation) the better a person you are.

People say, "Oh what a hard worker! He or she is so dedicated!".

Dedicated to what? A company that does not care about you-they care about the bottom line. And when it comes time for cutbacks and layoffs, well, they aren't exactly going to be looking out for your best interests. People need to get away from this mentality. It is only serving the companies, not the individuals, and certainly not their families.

I understand that many people, especially women, do not have the luxury of getting to choose the ideal job for their situation when they have a husband and children at home. It really pisses me off that it is acceptable in our society to think that women should bite the bullet and send her kids to daycare for 12 hours a day so they can travel 3 or 4 hours a day in rush hour to and from a miserable job and be expected to stay late! Hello? Raising a family here! The most important job in the world!

I know life was not ideal in the 50's and 60's, but why was it that a family could survive on 1 income then and we can't do it now? Why do both parents have to work? It does not make sense. We have babies and then have to give them to someone else to raise when we go back to work. I know most people don't have a choice, and most likely, I will have to go back to work when my kids start school, but this has got to change. Life is stressful enough.

I think these people who are obsessed with working are nuts. And I think the people who don't see how hard it is for a woman to leave her baby after one year and return to the workplace are jerks. YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB PEOPLE! Stop basing people's worth on how many hours they spend at the office or how much money they make. There is so much more out there.

(Reluctant)Office Girl